Green Eagles Land in Residence Halls

American University is adding something a little more trendy to its red, white, and blue: green.
At the beginning of the semester, AU joined 55 other colleges and universities in the United States in establishing a peer-to-peer sustainability outreach program that puts student experts on environmental issues in charge of promoting sustainability within residence halls, according to the web site for Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
“Many universities are adopting what is commonly known as an ‘Eco-Rep’ program,” said Emily Curley, Sustainability Coordinator at American University, “and we're glad to finally have one here at AU too. It will help us to reach a lot more students and hopefully create a culture of sustainability within the [residence] halls as well as begin to create a whole generation of eco-savvy citizens.”
The Green Eagles EcoRep Program, launched by the Office of Sustainability, employs 13 students part time, each assigned as a representative to the residence hall where he or she lives. Most halls have one representative, but larger halls Letts and Anderson have two.
The Green Eagles attend weekly meetings, in which they learn about living sustainably, AU’s energy policies, and what it takes to get students excited about sustainability.
The meetings have also been a means for the Green Eagles to learn about adjusting their lifestyles so that they can set an example for others. This includes altering current habits to more environmentally friendly practices like taking shorter showers and buying local foods.
Representatives also complete weekly assignments designed to educate students about sustainable practices, such as recycling and unplugging appliances when they are not being used, and encourage participation in sustainability efforts from students living in residence halls. Past assignments have included distributing a sustainability literacy test to residents via email, room-to-room comparisons of how much energy individual appliances use, and “energy patrolling”, which involved thanking people that representatives saw conserving energy.
“The Green Eagles allow us to have reach into the [residence] halls and among resident students by training and deploying the Green Eagles as student leaders,” said Curley, “Education is a big part of our job in order that our entire AU community can become more sustainable.”
Lindsey Breeding, a junior in the School of International Service, is the Green Eagle for Hughes Hall. Part of being a Green Eagle is setting an example for other students, Breeding told The Eagle earlier this semester.
“It’s like a peer-to-peer thing,” Breeding said. “It’s not like an authority figure telling students what to do. It’s someone on their level.”
While the Green Eagles often operate within their respective residence halls, in October, they completed their first major campus-wide project, an audit of over 1,000 pounds of garbage from all of the university’s residence halls. The purpose of the audit was to “determine the types and volume of waste being thrown away each day to better direct waste-reduction and diversion practices,” according to the Green Eagles web page.
During the four-hour process, the Green Eagles, along with 25 volunteers, found that about 23% of the waste was trash, while much of the rest of it could be reused or recycled. According to program lectures, the results will be studied and used to help AU achieve its goal of zero waste.
“In order to achieve [zero waste], we need to understand where [the waste] comes from and who produces it,” said Chris O’Brien, Director of Sustainability at AU.
The Green Eagles’ most recent project was American University’s participation in Campus Conservation Nationals, a three-week nationwide competition running from Nov. 1 to Nov. 19, in which 40 universities competed to see which could reduce electricity and water use the most, according to the Campus Conservation Nationals web site. This is the first time that the AU participated in the contest.
During the competition, screens in the lobby of each building detailed how much energy the building consumes. The Office of Sustainability’s web page showed American’s rankings in the competition live and how many kilowatt-hours each building has saved during the contest. The Green Eagles collected 710 pledges, 17% of the resident student population, to commit to energy-saving practices, such as turning off lights and unplugging appliances. American University finished seventh in the competition, with Roper Hall finishing first among the buildings on campus.
“While I think it is great that there is a program on campus that is encouraging sustainable environmental behavior, I wonder how effective these efforts are,” said Emily Werner, Leonard Hall resident, “If people really want to make a change on campus and advocate for a ‘green’ campus lifestyle, the Green Eagles need to be seen more instead of just heard. Throw a few demonstrations on campus, maybe a few events to show students that being "green" means taking action, not just having others tell you to do so.”
The Green Eagles program developed as a result of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, which was signed by American University President Neil Kerwin in 2008. By signing the ACUPCC, Kerwin joined other university presidents in a pledge to work to achieve carbon neutrality, which means that the university would have no green house gas emissions.
The ACUPCC is a project of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. AASHE provides colleges and universities with ranking tools, resources, and other support needed for their sustainability efforts. According to the AASHE web site, the ACUPCC currently has over 600 signatories.
Tufts University developed the first Eco Rep program in 2000. “We wanted to design a program that gave students the opportunity to learn more environmental issues and at the same time actively involve them in greening their dorms,” stated one summary of the program. Most Eco Rep programs, including American University’s, are based on the Tufts program.
Studies of current Eco Rep programs have shown that successful programs implement effective training for student representatives and provide opportunities for collaboration between students and faculty, according to University of Vermont Student Christina Erickson’s dissertation “Peer to Peer Sustainability Outreach Programs: The Interface of Education and Behavior Change”.
During the spring semester, the Green Eagles will promote Recyclemania, a 10-week national contest in which participating schools compete for the highest recycling rate. Last year, AU placed third out of 600 schools participating in the competition, according to O’Brien.
“We now have one or two people in each hall whose job is to recruit participation,” O’Brien said, adding that he would like to see AU place first this year.